How societies look after their older people is, for many, a benchmark of civilisation. Home care workers, who support the elderly, tend to be low in organisational pecking orders, poorly paid and overworked - a recipe for poor service.

Yet this outcome is anything but the case, according to researchers from the University of York, who were commissioned by the Department of Health to investigate home care. "In the range of services provided by local authorities," they conclude, "it seems likely that home care has fewer problems than most - far fewer, for example, than the children's homes we have recently studied. It is appreciated by its clients, considerably so by many. It also contains many dedicated and experienced staff who generally deliver sensitive and committed care."

The growth of home care is very much a feature of the past decade. It has gradually replaced traditional home helps, who used to visit clients once or twice a week to help with laundry, housework, shopping and so on. The home carer undertakes more "care" and less "help" - undertaking tasks such as bathing, toileting and dressing. The typical client will be frail and vulnerable and often lonely and depressed. As a result, home care staff are responsible for keeping an eye on the general welfare of their clients and providing social and, at times, emotional support.

Given this new role, how do the carers acquit themselves? Staggeringly well, according to the York team, who interviewed more than 2,000 clients, carers and organisers. In answer to the question, "Does my care worker make sure that I am comfortable?", an astonishing 97% of older people either agreed or strongly agreed. But there were also problems. Among care organisers, 87% claimed they had too few staff to cover peak times - meaning some older people were being "put to bed" at 5pm or being given their lunch at 11am.

The older people told researchers they valued their care staff highly. They described them as friendly, cheerful, discreet, thorough, obliging and gentle. But to achieve this level of customer satisfaction, carers said they had to "bend the rules" to get the job done - 70% saying they did so sometimes or frequently.

There were few complaints from the older people about any differences between care they received from private and voluntary, as opposed to public sector, organisations. But the researchers noted that the former tended to pay less and expect more from their staff - largely because local authorities had "passed the problem of lack of money to the independent sector by negotiating tight contracts, which, in turn, affected terms and conditions of service for employees".